Sb-doped ZnTe nanoribbons (NRs) with enhanced p-type conductivity were successfully synthesized by a simple thermal co-evaporation method. Nanodevices, including nano-field-effect transistors (FETs) and nano-photodetectors (nanoPDs), were constructed based on the ZnTe:Sb NRs and their structure dependent device performances were systemically investigated. It is found that the transport properties of the ZnTe nanostructures as well as the device structures play a critical role in determining the device performances. In contrast to the nano-metal-oxide-semiconductor FETs (nanoMOSFETs) with back-gate structure, the top-gate nano-metal-insulator-semiconductor FETs (nanoMISFETs) show much enhanced performances in all aspects. On the other hand, owing to the appropriate p-type doping, nano-photodetectors (nanoPDs) based on the ZnTe:Sb NRs exhibit excellent device performances, such as high responsivity and photoconductive gain, fast response speed, large detectivity and so on. Moreover, the response time could be effectively shortened by using nano-heterojunction photodetectors (nanoHPDs). It is expected that knowledge gained from this work could be readily extended to nanodevices based on other nanostructures.